challenge

It's kickoff week for the Inside the Jewish Bakery Challenge - Semester 1. We're starting off with Mohn bars.

The bars are made up of three sub-recipes: 1-2-3 dough, a poppyseed filling, and streusel on the top. I used KA bread flour instead of home milled this time.

Baking notes:

• The food processor did nothing for my poppy seeds -- I ended up using my blender, which did a great job.
• I ended up adding almost a half cup extra of water while boiling the poppyseed mix.
• Also, through bad reading, I boiled the honey rather than adding it at the end.
• I cooked the shortbread an extra 10 minutes to get some color into it (and it's still pretty pale)
• I cooked the final bars an extra 15 minutes, with the broiler on for the last 2 mins, to get the streusel browned

These bars are illustrative of why I'm in the challenge -- they have a (wonderful) flavor that I've never encountered, and would have never thought to try. I'm hoping there's still half a pan left for my wife to take to the office tomorrow, I really don't need to eat all of these :)

Hi, everyone! It's almost time to start the Inside the Jewish Bakery challenge! 

We'll be baking nearly every recipe found in the wonderful "Inside the Jewish Bakery" by TFLs very own Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg. Not only will we get a chance to bake all the recipes -- we'll get to eat all the recipes! I can't wait!

It turns out that this fabulous book has enough recipes to keep us occupied for over a year. So, I've broken it up into 6 "semesters" of approximately 15 recipes each, spanning about three and a half months each time. Semester One begins on December 3 of this year, with the following lineup:

I'll start off each item with a post or or near the assignment date for that item, and then the comments section of this blog will be open for anyone to post their experience. To keep us all more or less together, I ask that if you're going to participate, that you post your comments by no later than seven days after the original assignment date (which happens to be, also, the first day of the next item on the list). 

There has been tremendous interest in this challenge, which is so exciting. I've decided to not keep close track of who is signed up or not -- you all know who you are, chime in as you please. If you miss a week -- or two, or three -- join back in. All are welcome. I'm hoping that the semester format will help the task seem more manageable -- there's a lot of ground to cover in this book! 

I'm looking forward to the adventure with you all. And until then -- Happy Thanksgiving!

Kendra

Ten Teachers, Ten loaves, Ten days.

I am going to give all of the teachers who have impacted me each a handmade loaf of bread. I need to find recipes for visually appealing, distinct loaves so that I can express my appreciation, and of course so that I have an excuse to try new recipes!

If any one has any suggestions, Id love to try them. I also plan on using some of the recipes on this site and in the BBA. And of course, as my graduation present was a new camera, I'll share all of my experiments.

Happy Baking.

EDIT - Also, what type of kitchen scale would people recommend getting. There is such a wide range that i'm not sure which is the right one.